'This Week' Transcript: The Battle for the Constitution

WASHINGTON, July 3, 2011

Page 7 of 16

AMANPOUR: You'd be hard pressed to find an American who doesn't see
the Constitution as the foundation of government. But after that,
things get murky. Would the Constitution for instance allow a law
requiring people to buy health insurance? Do Second Amendment gun
rights hold up in the age of the assault weapon? And when the First
Amendment was drafted, could the authors have ever dreamt that one day
it would protect violent video games? Let's bring back our roundtable.

So let's get to some of these specifics, which is so much part of
the conversation around the country today. We touched briefly on health
care. The whole debate about President Obama's health care act is being
called unconstitutional in some quarters. So is that going to be
challenged at the Supreme Court?

WILL: 26 states, more or less, (inaudible) 26 are in various courts
around the country in a case absolutely certain to be decided by the
Supreme Court.

The question is, has the congressional power to regulate interstate
commerce been so loosely construed that now Congress can do anything at
all, that there is nothing it cannot do.

Let me ask the three of you. Obviously, obesity and its costs
affect interstate commerce. Does Congress have the constitutional power
to require obese people to sign up for Weight Watchers? If not, why not?

STENGEL: Justice Vincent's opinion about Obamacare, saying that the
government can't regulate inactivity and that we're stretching the
Commerce Clause too far -- I think it's kind of silly. Everything
having to do with health care does cross state boundaries. Even that
notion of the Commerce Clause as regulating among the states is a kind
of antiquarian idea. The government can ask you to do things. It asks
us to --

WILL: It's not asking us, it's mandating.

STENGEL: It asks us to pay our taxes. It asks us to register for
the draft. It asks us to buy car insurance if we want to drive our car
around.

(CROSSTALK)

WILL: -- to buy a car.

STENGEL: If something is unconstitutional, people out there tend to
think like some alarm will go off if something is unconstitutional.
It's unconstitutional if the Supreme Court decides it's
unconstitutional. And by the way, this can go to the Supreme Court, and
we can see whether that happens.

WILL: Well, does Congress have the power to mandate that obese
people sign up for -- do they have the power to do this?

STENGEL: I don't know the answer to that.

WILL: You don't know.

DYSON: Well, the beauty of that is, the not knowing -- and we can
predict that Rick would say that because he's saying that's the color of
the curtain. The basic foundation is set.

WILL: Is that a yes, Congress does have the power to mandate?

DYSON: It's open. If they decide that they will, they will have
the power to do so.

LEPORE: Can I just sort of offer up a sort of a slightly different
vantage on this question, because I think it's an important one. But I
think, again, just sort of sound the note again, that this debate is
what the Constitution is about. Right? We can have this debate. This
is evidence that the Constitution is working.